


a little bit of love

by fruectose



Series: tumblr prompts [6]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25821286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruectose/pseuds/fruectose
Summary: Tumblr prompt: A comes to a mandatory meeting sick. B is the only one who notices how miserable they are and offers them tissues
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: tumblr prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756708
Comments: 1
Kudos: 106





	a little bit of love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bipercabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bipercabeth/gifts).



It takes three seconds of being awake for Percy Jackson to learn that he is _not_ okay.

“Gee, wonder what gave that away?” He asks himself drily, because even three seconds is too long to come to that conclusion. He rolls over in his bed and blinks blearily up at his ceiling. His nose is stuffed with what he can only assume is his own body weight in mucus and his head weighs a thousand pounds.

He doesn’t know how long he lies in his bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the meaning of his existence when his roommate, Grover, pokes his head in through the door.

“You’re about to be late to work.” Grover tells him and Percy kind of wants to cry- more than how his eyes are already watering by default, at least- because how can he be expected to get himself to work? His legs are dead on his mattress and his body won’t cooperate.

“I can’t.” He mumbles, so quietly that Grover frowns and steps into his room.

“What’s that?”

“I can’t.” Percy repeats a little louder. “I’m too sick.”

Grover obviously does not buy that. “Maybe you are.” He allows. “Maybe what you have is more than just your run of the mill _cold_.” His tone makes it obvious his diagnosis is final; he will no longer be evaluating Percy’s symptoms. “Now get moving. We’ve got that meeting with Cedar Studios today and you know Dr. Thorn is going to have our heads if it doesn’t go smoothly.”

Grover is, unfortunately, correct as he is un-welcome right now. The low cost, mediocre-on-a-good-day architecture firm they used to be working with for their new campus went under (big surprise there) and now their insane director decided to splurge on hiring the best firm in New York to finish the job- Percy doesn’t know how his boss’s mind works and he really, truly can’t bring himself to care. Anyway, if Thorn’s precious new campus planning committee was threatened by illness or tardiness, he’d have Percy’s head. Percy is quite attached to his head and, given the option, would choose to remain physically attached to it for as long as possible, which means he absolutely _has_ to show up today.

Percy buries his face in his pillow and mumbles some nonsensical words into it. He can feel Grover’s patience thinning on his side and peers back at him, trying his best _please cover for me_ look. Grover crosses his arms over his chest and raises a brow.

“Come on, man. The meeting can’t drag on too long. I’m catching a train out to Philly at one, so I have almost no time to waste.” Grover pokes him with his crutch until Percy finally gives in. He drags himself to his feet and glares at his best friend.

“I could have a life-threatening illness and you’re making me work?”

“No, Old Man Thorn is making you work. I’m trying to make sure you keep your job.” Grover tells him patiently. Percy decides to skip out on his shower and trudges into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Grover follows behind him, standing by the doorframe and continuing to offer absolutely no sympathy to him while his body slowly degenerates.

“How long you staying with Juniper?” Percy asks as he squirts paste onto his brush. He scrubs his teeth with all the energy he has (which is none) and looks at Grover.

“The usual.” Grover sighs. “Just the weekend, be back Monday morning.”

Grover disappears for a moment and comes back with a neatly pressed pair of trousers, jacket and shirt for Percy. It’s almost as if he’d known Percy would most definitely be late.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Percy grumbles, spitting into the sink and wiping his face. Grover shrugs.

“This is an important meeting.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. This whole new campus is just an excuse for Thorn to put _more_ space between himself and us lowly worker bees. Why are we meant to go, anyway? Isn’t this, like, an administration thing?”

“Because he put us on this stupid committee.” Grover hums, not sounding particularly bothered as Percy changes. “And I suppose the committee for the new campus should be involved in designing the new campus. Can’t be sure of that, though.”

“ _Why_ are we on it?” Percy asks up to the heavens and receives no answer. Grover is distracted by his phone and excuses himself. Percy hears him talking to his girlfriend in the living room and decides to call a special woman in his own life. He sticks his phone between his ear and shoulder and hops around the bathroom pulling his slacks on as it rings.

“Hi, honey. Is everything okay?”

“No. I’m dying.” Percy tells her. There’s a pause, a ruffle of paper and then a sigh.

“Are you being dramatic?” His mom asks.

“Yes.”

“Okay, you know I love you plenty, but I have to go. Paul and I are driving up to Albany for the weekend and I haven’t packed, and I’ve got to meet with Jules, and-”

“I get it. Your son is likely taking his last steps on this planet and you’re too busy.” Percy tells her flatly. His best friend and his family are _both_ out for the weekend? Things are shaping out to be great.

“You know that’s not true.” His mom chides mildly, but even over the phone he can tell she’s distracted. “If you’re feeling terrible, take the day off.” She suggests.

“I can’t. I’ve got this stupid meeting and it’s a Friday. If I take today off, I lose three days of pay.”

“That’s nice.” His mom says so he knows she isn’t listening. “Just… get through today and make yourself some soup and get tons of rest.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom.” Percy says. _Thanks for nothing_.

“I’ll call you the moment I can, honey. Love you loads.”

She hangs up before he can answer. So much for turning to his own flesh and blood for some compassion, he thinks sourly. So much for tender love and care. He rolls his shoulders and shrugs on his shirt. Grover appears at the door again and bangs the bottom of his crutches against the wood.

“Let’s _go_.” Grover leads them out of the apartment, leaving Percy stumbling behind him trying to do up his three buttons before he gets arrested for public nudity. He shrugs on his suit jacket just as they burst into the summer morning.

“I’ve been doing some research on Cedar Studios. The lady we’re working with, Silena Beckendorf- she specializes in eco-friendly architectural solutions. There’s some stuff on the website about how she uses recycled waters in the toilets and-”

“That sounds vile. Don’t explain.” Percy groans. It doesn’t seem right that they can talk about piss water but not about Percy’s crippling affliction?

They swing by their usual coffee truck and Percy presses his cup to his nose in hopes of the warmth healing him. Grover rolls his eyes.

“You’re so dramatic.” He says.

“I’m so _sick_.” Percy corrects. Since announcing his struggles, he hasn’t received so much as one kind word from the two people in the world who are supposed to care about him the most- his mother and his best friend. Is it that difficult to offer to make him some soup, maybe tell him to feel better soon?

The mistreatment carries on through the day- Rachel, Clarisse, Frank- none of them so much as acknowledge Percy’s debilitating ailment. Suffice to say he is not feeling loved and cared for at _all_ by the time they make it to the architect’s firm.

Cedar Studios is impressive, and that’s the first thing he notes when he pulls up with Grover, Clarisse and Castor. The space itself is chic- Percy is almost offended at how suave it is, with its high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows and all their plants so carefully placed. The entire office looks like a Pinterest board.

Meeting Ms. Beckendorf is even more impressive. Percy tries to listen to what she’s saying, but it’s difficult not to get distracted by her. She’s beautiful. He can’t stop staring at her, but he also can’t bring himself to focus on any one of her features, like his eyes are too afraid that if they look at her nose, they’ll miss the rest. She’s wearing a pantsuit and a patterned blouse that he doesn’t think very many people can pull off.

When Thorn finally shows up, she leads them to the meeting room, and Percy peers into the glass cubicles of the architects. None of them so much as bats an eye at them, but he’s awestruck. Percy is no architecture genius, but he can appreciate photos of pretty buildings- and almost every wall in the office is lined with them. He can see Thorn studying them eagerly as they walk, already envisioning some creative, never-before-seen style for Atlas Energy’s new campus.

He’s the last one into the room- and takes a seat as far away from the speakers as possible. He tries not to feel intimidated by the way the people from Silena’s team regard him as he sits down between Grover and blonde woman. She has a laptop open and sitting on the table, but her head is bent over a drawing pad. When she sees the chair next to her shift, she looks up at him.

All thoughts fly straight out of Percy’s mind. She’s _stunning_ , he thinks, because he cannot bring himself to stop staring at her. Does this firm exclusively hire the most attractive people to walk this planet? He doesn’t know and it’s very difficult for his brain to comprehend anything aside from her sharp nose and high cheekbones. He wants to reach out and touch her hair because it looks so soft. Her lips quirk up in the smallest, amused smile, and for one moment, the world falls away around them.

Then Thorn starts speaking, the spell is broken and he sinks into the chair. Grover looks at him quizzically, but now Percy is hyper-aware of the goddess sitting on his other side, and can barely bring himself to open his too-dry mouth. He shifts uneasily in his chair, his cheeks heating up from the embarrassment of being around her.

He leans back and tries to play it cool, because that’s what you do when you take one look at someone and your first thought is that you want to carry their babies, biology be damned. He leans his elbow onto the arm of his chair, props his head up and sneaks a glance at her.

She’s not dressed half as formally as Silena, wearing a pair of leggings, trainers and a big pastel blue hoodie. Her hair is tied up in a messy ponytail and her phone sits haphazardly on the table, earphones still plugged in. She looks like she was out on a morning run and this meeting is just a stop along her way. It makes sense that she’s sat quietly at the very edge of the table, trying to draw as little attention to herself as she can. It’s an insane idea, because Percy can barely think about anything except her presence. She must feel his stare because she turns her head and looks him dead in the eye, raising one eyebrow.

Percy thinks he narrowly escapes from being caught out, because he coughs into his hand once and readjusts himself, which is just as well, because he’s really uncomfortable. His nose chooses this exact moment to unclog and, like a dam broken, releases rivers of snot to flow freely out his nostrils. He sniffles desperately and shifts over and over in his seat- his bones and muscles ache if he stays still too long. The effects of the coffee wear off all too quickly and leave him feeling jittery and sweaty and tired in a way he can’t put to words.

He runs a hand through his hair and risks a peek at the Beautiful Girl and realizes she’s watching him- not the way he’d been watching her, discretely and with some sense of shame, but unabashedly and in the open. Worse still, she wore a massive grin- one which might have knocked Percy out cold if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with sitting just right so his body will stop complaining. She’s _laughing_ at him, he realizes.

“What?” He snaps. Beautiful or not, Percy is not in the mood to be someone’s cheap entertainment. She shakes her head and slips her hand in her pocket before holding something out to him.

Tissues. He blinks at the packet and then at her. “What?” He asks again in a quiet whisper.

“You’re snotty.” She tells him shortly. One part of Percy thinks her voice is all the medicine he needs to feel better. The more rational, struggling part of him makes a note to buy some Ibuprofen on the way home. The part of him that feels pride does _not_ take well to her observation. He scowls at her but accepts her tissues.

“Oh.” He says gruffly, trying to blow his nose as discretely as possible. “I’m probably not, like, contagious or anything.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugs. “I’m not really afraid of catching a cold.”

Percy doesn’t like her dismissal of his grave illness. If she had any idea how miserable he’s been, she’d be singing a different tune. “What, you got a medical practice on the side?”

She smirks a little, like she knows something he doesn’t. It irritates Percy to no bounds. It’s nothing short of an anatomical miracle when she leans back and folds her long legs onto the chair, sitting comfortably with her knees pressed against the edge of the table. It’s not professional in the least, but none of her colleagues seem to care.

“Maybe.” She says casually. “Maybe I’ve been watching you struggle through this snooze-fest and figured it out by rubbing two brain cells together.”

“Here I was thinking only Neanderthals rubbed everything they found together.”

“It works. How else do you think you’ll get that hot soup you so desperately need?”

Percy is too tired to continue. He needs this sharp-tongued, under-dressed, pretty and irritating woman to shut _the_ _fuck_ up before he loses his self-restraint and strangles her. He rolls his eyes and tries to turn his attention back onto something Clarisse is saying, but the blonde lady isn’t wrong. The meeting is boring as hell and he has absolutely nothing to add to (or even take from) it. Why he was put on the committee for the new campus is beyond him- he cares as much for architecture as he does for Atlas Energies- which is not at all. If anything, it’s just an elaborate plot by Dr. Thorn to make his life exponentially worse. _Don’t just do the job you hate, Jacques-son_ , he can hear his withered old boss sneer in his head. _Also do this_ other _thing you’re going to loathe so you never feel happiness again. May you drown in a river of misery_.

Percy closes his eyes and rolls his neck. Then he wipes at his nose with a new tissue. He can feel her eyes on him, piercing through the back of his head, so when he turns around to look at her he’s already exasperated.

“What now?” He nips, only to find her typing on her laptop, her brows stitched together with a sincerity she couldn’t have been faking. Percy is so embarrassed by his reaction, he tries to look away, but he’s too late. She lifts her head and blinks at him, as if her brain is taking a second to bring her back to reality.

“Huh?” She asks. He shakes his head and makes to turn his back to her when he catches sight of her laptop screen. He assumes that’s her design, and he can’t stop himself from leaning towards it.

“What’s that?” He asks, pointing to what looks like a hand-drawn doodle of a massive hall with large arches and open walls and rows of tables neatly arranged. Her eyes sparkle and she blushes slightly and Percy feels his cheeks heat up in response. The funny mixture of pride and humility, he decides, is a good look on her.

“Hopefully your new cafeteria. If you guys like it, obviously.” She says.

“What if it rains?” Percy asks.

“There’s a roof.”

“No walls, though. What about winter?”

Her clever eyes light up. “Oh, I’ve been working on that for ages. Look.”

She hits some of her buttons and the doodle springs to life, a haphazard animation of people walking around and sitting down and eating. One of her little stick figures hits a button and the roof begins to expand and curve, curve, curve- until the entire space is covered in a huge dome. It’s rough, and they’re only scribbles, but Percy is mesmerized by the elegance of her design.

“And it runs on minimal solar energy.” She whispers. “Even the winter sun is enough.”

“That explains a lot.” He says.

“What?” She asks.

“Why you can walk in like that,” He nods to her clothes. “And nobody holds it against you. You’re one of those geniuses, aren’t you?”

Her cheeks redden and he cannot believe a woman like her can is just dawdling about town, _existing_ , being as cute as she is. She plays with the laces on her trainers.

“I get some liberties.” She admits.

“Oh, please. Don’t be modest.” Percy says. He offers her a small smile and she rolls her eyes. He can’t put a finger on what it is about her that makes her almost irresistible.

“I’m not. This isn’t my meeting, I’m just here out of interest.” She gestures to her hoodie and keeps her gaze on her shoes. “I was meant to have a day off but Silena called me like, three minutes before the meeting started for a last-minute consult. I’m usually _very_ professional.”

“ _How_ professional?” Percy mimics her tone, suddenly emboldened by her bashfulness.

“What’s the scale?” It’s not fair to be as flushed and poised like she is. It doesn’t make sense that she’s both shy and smug, but she walks that line with easy grace and just the right amount of caution. She’s only about a two feet away from him, but she’s so far out of reach it’s almost laughable. Maybe it’s that knowledge- that he’s got almost nothing to lose, really, that pushes Percy to shoot his shot.

“Are you too professional for instance,” He says, gesturing vaguely. “To go on a date with a client?”

Her smile, like everything else about her, is brilliant and Percy’s heart pounds against his chest. She shrugs.

“I am.” She says simply. “ _Far_ too professional to date my clients.”

Percy knows his face drops, knows his disappointment is apparent, but her eyes shine at his reaction. Maybe he’s dodged a bullet, he thinks. Maybe she’s cruel. It doesn’t sting any less.

“Not professional enough,” She continues. “To extend that to Silena’s clients, unfortunately.”

“Oh.” Percy says, realization slowly dawning on him. He lets out a laugh. “You had me going, for a second.”

“Good.” She smiles. He can already tell she’s going to be the death of him.

“How does tonight sound?” Percy asks. He wants solid plans, just on the off-chance she’s still joking. He needs to know for sure that he is taking this witty, gorgeous woman out to dinner, and he needs to know she’s not going to slip away through his fingers because he’s too scared to hesitant his thoughts.

“How about you start by asking me my name?” She says, and Percy cannot believe that her name isn’t The Woman, much less that he never asked for it. He squints at her.

“Is it… Megan?” He asks her tentatively.

“No. It’s-”

“Arabella.” Percy tries again. She raises her brows, looking mildly impressed. It feels like the biggest achievement in Percy’s entire life- he gets the feeling she’s usually the most impressive person in the room, and isn’t used to people suprising her.

“Oddly enough, that’s somewhat close-ish. Annabeth.” She tells him, and it’s far more fitting than anything Percy might have conjured.

  
“So, _Annabeth_ ,” He draws out her name slowly, carefully, savoring the way it feels, spoken for the first time. It’s fortunate, he thinks, that he gets to go through all his firsts with her already knowing that he’s most definitely going to fall in love with her. “Want to go out to dinner with me, Percy, tonight?”

Her lips quirk up at the sound of his name. “Unusual name.” She says.

“No more or less than Annabeth.”

“Dinner tonight’s on me.” She ignores him. “I’ll get you some soup, we can watch a movie and I’ll go home after and you’ll get loads of sleep. How does that sound?”

Percy groans because how is that meant to be at all romantic, but then he thinks about how he started the day, desperate for kindness, attention and soup, and how he’s about to end it with all three and a pretty girl. She’ll never know it, but it’s romantic to him. He shrugs his shoulders.

“Guess we’ll have to make up for it on our second date.”


End file.
